Is Sonar powerful enough to make a full fledged album?

Does Sonar X3 sound good enough and has the necessary plugins and synths to record and mix a pro quality album?

Well that depends on some other factors as well like your instruments, your hardware and most importantly your own skill but yes... Sonar is a professional DAW.
 
You also have to consider the different packages. X3 (the base version) doesn't come with nearly as much stuff as Producer or Studio BUT does have everything you NEED (like instruments and effects). It just may be a little harder to get the results you want and you may be a little more limited creatively. Still people have been recording pro albums on FAR less for many  many years.
 
With the higher end packages you get duplicate, triplicate and sometimes MORE variants on specific plug ins and instruments giving you much more flexibility. You also get the ProChannel with those versions which makes mixing much easier (IMO) and the PC effects are very very nice considering the low cost.
 
Thing is you have to learn how and when to use them. X3 can do pretty much most anything in regards to audio production. Getting it to actually DO those things is the hard part but really no harder than any other DAW.
 
hmm... I'd say welcome to the forum but it seems you've been here for quite a while. Seems like an odd question considering that fact. :-/

I think they had two of them, Studer Revox if I'm not mistaken.
And it probably doesn't hurt to have George Martin at your side.

But to your question with a competent engineer and good outboard equipment I have no doubt you can.
WSS

ProTools has a very nice workflow for audio especially (or so most people feel). Back when PCs were a  LOT less powerful, their expansion cards allowed people to use a ton of plugins while native systems were stuck with a few, or low quality ones. These days, that isn't such an issue, but ProTools is by now the de facto standard for larger recording studios. Many production style studios use Cubase, Logic and yes, Sonar. Reaper is gaining some popularity, and if I'm not mistaken Colby Caillat's hit of 2012(?) "Call Me Maybe" was done entirely in Reason.
 
In other words, your own skill in composition, production and mixing are much more likely to hamper you than any inherent lack of sound quality on Sonar's part.

zblip
Thanks for answering. Well, the reason I ask this question is, studios use Pro Tools and I wonder, is there a reason other than the fact that Pro Tools is a standard, that engineers use it in studio? Does Sonar have an inferior over all sound due to the fact that it is a Native DAW and doesn't use physical processing cards? Is there an aspect of Sonar that is "sub standard" compared to Pro Tools etc?

I did quite a few classical projects at Maricam Studios in Santa Fe, which was based around a big $$ Pro Tools system. We used it for tracking, but it drove me nuts trying to edit (this was before Pro Tools implemented features like faster-than-real-time bounce and clip envelopes). So after tracking, I'd take the audio files back to my studio, and do the editing/mixing in Sonar. One of the CDs won an award, so I guess it was good enough
 
You can do a pro level album in just about any DAW these days, even the lower-level ones have more power than the studios of yesteryear. I prefer Sonar because of the workflow, ease of use, and versatility - no matter what kind of project I need to do, Sonar can handle it.

zblip
Thanks Mr Anderton! BTW, since you are in the loop, any chances of having better video handling in Sonar in the near future?

First of all although I am "more in the loop" than before, I don't speak for Cakewalk and don't keep track of all future plans. That said, I'm not sure what you mean by "better video handling." If you mean Sonar becoming like Sony Vegas, I doubt it...any more than Sony Vegas is going to become a full-fledged DAW. I just don't think the current state of the art allows for a single program to incorporate two extremely complex/demanding functions.
 
However in terms of import/export and basic video handling, X3d took a huge step forward by changing the underlying engine for handling video. This is a bit like going from 32 to 64-bit in the sense that there are some growing pains, but Sonar is now basically set up for more flexibility and easier video development going forward, and can handle more video types more seamlessly at present.

Ask this question in the Songs forum and you'll soon hear your answer!

Thanks this is good news since I'm looking forward to using Sonar for scoring to picture.I Love Sonar's music creation tools but the video short comings is presently a show stopper for me and I have to use Pro Tools for this reason.
 
In Pro Tools (as you probably know):
 
Video is shown as an clip on a track just like audio
 
You can have mulitple video tracks (good for working with different video version of a project)
 
You can have multiple video clips on the same track (good for producing multiple music to picture events in one single project)
 
You can cut, paste, stretch out, crop, drag, glue, append, heal, move up or down, nudge split snap and then some the video track
 
You can even change the video edit by cutting or adding in shots and entire scenes in a video and then bounce flawlessly to this new created video... (I've done this often for clients who had timing problems in their video, cutting or adding time to a scene etc and have the video shop replicate what I did on the online video.)
 
Handling video isn't just the capacity to play video alongside audio. In the real world of doing publicity, movie scoring, sound design for video games etc one has got to rely on a more versatile and evolved video app. I was head sound designer for Ubisofts Batman revenge and we were receiving tones of clips, sometimes one second long, clips we had to loop for the purpose doing ambiance loops, many scenes in one single clip, that we had to cut in different individual clips etc etc... 
Never would I have been able to do this inside the present form of Sonar's video app. 
 
Do you agree with what I'm saying?

I don't think you're gonna be able to do all THAT with new video improvements. It looks to be mostly the same set up but using a different engine so it won't be as quirky. I may be mistaken on that but what you are looking for is more in the Nuendo level and that stuff is very expensive. Your best bet is to make sure the video has already been edited to how it's going to be released and do your score based on that.
 
That is indeed a very different question than your OP though.

And doesn't the really high end video options in PT require some kind of expansion purchase or the top tier version of the software? Those are the types of features that tack on the extra $1000 or so to the purchase price.
 

Sonar has some video facilities but shouldn't be regarded as a video production suite.

Another vote for Vegas+Sonar. Depending on the project I'll either create the audio first (e.g., narration for tutorials) then bring into Vegas and cut audio to video, or create the audio in Vegas and bring into Sonar for scoring. With the latter, the time-stretching DSP and acidization/REX options are helpful for coping with unforeseen changes.
 
 

It's not the hammer, it's the carpenter.
 
Are YOU powerful enough to make a pro product?

I wouldn't want to pay extra for video features, I just want this software for producing music, and its already quite expensive enough for the Pro version. I couldn't afford Pro Tools, and I think its great how Sonar lets you start with cheaper option and then upgrade later, so its much more friendly for low budgets and / or beginners.